


she's got you (where she wants you)

by dirty_diana



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Ex Sex, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Pining, Team Dynamics, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-13 04:08:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13562496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirty_diana/pseuds/dirty_diana
Summary: Can't bet what you've already lost. Nate and Amaya are over, except for when they aren't. Nate is fine with that, except for when he isn't.





	she's got you (where she wants you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [klutzy_girl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/klutzy_girl/gifts).



> a very belated fandom stocking gift, with thanks to llaras for the beta!

It's June, 1967, and Amaya's wearing a loose minidress so short it barely touches the top of her bare thighs. Nate can't tear his eyes away. Light glints off her totem that she's wearing around her neck, as she toys with with it distracted hands. There's a polite cough from somewhere behind him, and then Ray elbows him in the side. Hard.

"Ow, dude."

Across the bridge, Mick is openly laughing at him. 

"You with us, Nate?" Sara asks.

"Sure," Nate says, even though he guesses he's missed at least two or three minutes of conversation. "We're going to stop the anachronism?"

Sara sighs, shaking her head. She looks amused. "Ray, explain the plan to Nate later."

"Aye, Captain." Ray promises. That's how Nate ends up in Woodstock, New York, in a van that smells more than a little of weak weed, listening to his best friend trying to stage a gentle intervention.

"I know it's hard. Because you didn't get any closure."

"You mean because Amaya snuck out of our apartment in Central City like a thief in the night?" Nate asks.

Ray nods sympathetically, adjusting the patterned vest he's wearing over a faded white shirt. "I'm just saying, you know? I know Amaya's focusing on herself right now. And figuring out her totem. Maybe you should do the same."

"Focus on Amaya's totem?" Nate asks with raised eyebrows. He's faintly aware that he's being a jerk, and that Ray's his friend who doesn't really deserve it.

"I just think," Ray says, cheerfully shrugging off Nate's bad attitude, "that we've got enough to worry about right now, with Damien Darhk and Mallus and uh, the world possibly ending. Maybe it's better if we just deal with that."

It's a nice speech. Ray makes great speeches. It's not as if Nate doesn't already know that he needs to just get over it. He also knows that getting over things isn't something he's very good at. "Thanks, buddy," he says, sincerely, and Ray beams at him.

Nate's comm crackles in his ear. "Spotted the anachronism," Zari announces.

"She's hot," Mick adds. "Want me to grab her?"

Sara's sigh is a clear whistle across the communication channel. "No, Mick. Stay put. I'll go grab our lost Amazonian."

"Of course you will," Mick says, but he doesn't sound upset. 

"Do you think I can get Janis Joplin to sign my guitar?" Nate asks no one in particular.

*

It's the rainy season, deep in Central America, 1629. They're on the banks of the Tomebamba River, and Nate can hardly see through the cloud of mosquitoes that surrounds him. Beside him, Amaya looks perfectly relaxed in the wool tunic that curls around her shoulders and hips.

"Maybe they just prefer future blood," she teases him, with a smile on her lips.

"Then shouldn't Zari be the featured delicacy?" Nate asks. He considers turning to steel to avoid getting bitten. Maybe it would be too dramatic.

Zari comes stumbling out of the treeline, right on cue. It seems like she's near to Amaya most of the time now. Nate likes Zari. He likes her caustic sense of humour and how she always seems to throw Ray off balance. He definitely isn't jealous of how much she seems to make Amaya laugh, because that would be silly. "I'm innoculated," she says. "Aren't you?"

"There's a mosquito vaccine in the future?" Ray asks in genuine interest. Nate rolls his eyes. There's always at least a fifty percent chance that Zari is pulling all of their legs.

*

They're in Port Royal, 1691, and Ray won't stop talking in the most ridiculous pirate accent Nate's ever heard. Beneath her ribboned bonnet, Amaya's eyes and mouth brighten with a small, mystified smile every time.

Their target is flying timeship technology, stolen out of a Time Bureau warehouse nearly two millenia into the future. When the ship fires in their direction, Gideon shoots back. From the ground, the exploding plasma beams kind of look like fireworks.

"We're in pursuit!" Sara shouts over the comms. Both ships wink out of the sky, leaving Nate and Amaya standing together in the sand.

The two of them could probably take seventy pirates with a handful of unreliable muskets, but Nate's not sure about the knives. He holds his breath, keeps his weight forward, ready to back up Amaya if she decides to attack. For once they're on the same page. Amaya lets Nate do all the fast-talking, silently holding her breath beside him, until the pirate captain slaps them both in the shoulder. "Very well, Mr. Jones. You will take us to this treasure."

"Treasure. Yeah."

"Your slave can sleep below in the hold," the pirate adds, and Amaya draws the longsword she's been keeping beneath her skirts. The design isn't historically accurate, technically speaking, but it's light and very sharp.

"I was born free," Amaya says, in a loud, clear voice. Every man on the beach looks up. "I intend to stay that way. We sleep together."

Nate coughs, choking on salt air. The pirate captain laughs, revealing the shadows of missing teeth. "Fair enough. Madam."

Amaya nods regally, sheathes her sword, and follows Nate to a tiny leeward cabin.

There's no view and no bed, just a bedroll with thin, moth-eaten blankets, and an overflowing bottle of rum. They can just fit on the sleeping mat if Amaya leans against his side, resting her head on his shoulder. His nose is full of the scent of clean skin and fresh, blooming flowers.

"You smell nice," Nate says. He might be a little drunk.

"Thanks?" Amaya says.

Nate hums the first few notes of _Dancing in the Dark_ into the awkward silence that follows. "It's not that big a compliment," he points out. "I've been smelling pirates all day."

She wrinkles her nose. "Fair enough," she agrees, and picks up the tune.

He doesn't remember introducing her to Springsteen.

"At least you don't have hypothermia this time," Amaya says after a little while.

"I didn't think you still remembered that," Nate answers bitterly, and okay, fuck. He's already drunk.

Amaya tilts her head at him. Her brown eyes are dark, and she's leveling the very serious expression that always makes him want to duck in case there's a lecture coming. "I could never forget that."

He flinches back a little in surprise when she kisses him. Nate feels weak, as if he's bleeding. Amaya sighs a little against him, whispers his name, and oh, yeah. He should probably put a stop to this right now. Nate's heart pounds unevenly in his chest.

It takes ten fumbling, giggly minutes to get Amaya out of her stays and petticoats. They make love on top of the pile of discarded clothing, bodies braced against the rocking of the waves.

Nate wakes up with Amaya asleep in his arms, and the whale bone from her underwear poking him in the side. This was always the part that they were pretty good at.

*

When Sara finds them two days later, they're sitting on the beach, watching a parade of crabs slink back to the ocean in low tide.

"Time to go," she orders. "Unless the two of you are ready to retire to the Caribbean and sip cocktails all day."

"Didn't know that was an option," Mick grumbles behind her.

Nate shakes his head, and dusts the sand off his pants. He helps Amaya up, and probably imagines that her hand clings to his for an extra moment. "That depends. Is Ray still talking like a pirate?"

"Aargh, matey," Ray says, over the comms. "You bet."

"You find any treasure?" Mick wants to know.

Nate shrugs. "Yeah. Found it, lost it, almost got thrown overboard by Blackbeard and eaten by sharks. Story of my life."

Amaya looks like she wants to say something, but she doesn't. Nate is grateful.

*

When they return to the Waverider, Ray greets him with a fistbump and sad eyes. "Don't," Nate says, then feels guilty for the way Ray's mouth turns down even more. 

The problem is this: nothing's changed. Yoda said the future is always in motion. But it seems to Nate like the future's a brick wall, and he's getting pretty tired of banging his head against it. 

*

Leo Snart gets Gideon to make him another puppet. It's fucking creepy, is what it is. He sits Nate down in the captain's study, and plops the puppet down on the desk between them.

"Uh." Nate frowns at the toy. It's got dark skin, long dark hair, and a familiar brown superhero suit. "Is that supposed to be Amaya?"

"Well, it's just supposed to represent Amaya. See, I've sensed that you still have some things to get off your chest when it comes to her." Leo Snart speaks in his usual low, honey-slow tones.

"You sensed that, huh."

"Indeed. This will help, trust me. We're just going to do a little roleplay--"

Nate's eyebrows knot together. "I'm, uh, not usually that kinky?"

"Never know until you try. Come on. You can practice a little for the real thing, and then you can, you know." Leo mimes putting his palms together, like closing a book.

Nate waits. Leo pushes puppet-Amaya a little closer to him, and coughs, before launching into a rough imitation of a female voice. "Nathaniel, I think we need to talk about how we ended things."

"Hmmn," Nate says, staring at the puppet. "She doesn't usually volunteer to talk about her feelings? Like, at all. It's really aggravating, actually."

"Perhaps we could try this anyway," Leo answers, gesturing encouragingly.

Nate continues. "And technically, you know, _she_ ended things. Without any warning. On. My. Birthday."

Leo grips the puppet a little bit tighter. "I'm sure she'd like to tell you that she's sorry for that."

"I don't need you to apologise!" Nate yells, and great. Now he's screaming at a puppet. "I heard it already. I'm not mad at you anymore, Amaya."

Puppet-Amaya stares back at him with unblinking button eyes. 

"I'm like ninety-five percent not mad at you anymore," Nate amends. "Ninety-three percent. No, what I am is in love with you. I'm always going to be in love with you. And I'm sorry if that's uncomfortable for you and, well, everybody else aboard this ship. Including Gideon, probably."

Puppet-Amaya is still staring at him. So is Leo. Nate sighs, and takes a deep breath.

"You probably weren't expecting all that," he says apologetically.

"No," Leo agrees slowly. "But that's good. We just need to maybe try it without the yelling."

"Nah. I think I'm done." Nate kicks back his chair, the legs scraping sharply on the floor of the Waverider. He feels naked and exposed, but that's nothing new.

*

They make a stop in Central City two weeks later, so that Cisco Ramon can open the breach to Earth-X that will take Leo Snart home. He annoyed the hell out of everyone, but he was useful in a fight. Nate's kind of going to miss him.

Leo hugs Nate and says, "Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom."

"Thomas Jefferson," Nate answers back. "Not really one of my personal heroes, to be honest."

He's not standing close enough to hear the inspirational quote Leo whispers to Mick, but Sara breaks up that fight before it can really get started.

*

They call Jax and invite him to dinner aboard the Waverider. Jax isn't in Central City, he explains. He's backpacking in Eastern Europe, where it's currently the middle of the night.

"We do have a timeship," Sara reminds him. "We could come to you, at any place or time."

"That sounds great, Sara. But I think I'm going to have to catch up with y'all next time, okay?"

Zari raises her eyebrows after Gideon cuts the connection. "Did that sound like a kiss-off to anyone else?" 

"No, it'a good that he's busy and having fun," Ray insists. "That's what we wanted for him, right?"

Everyone on the bridge is silent for a moment.

*

With team dinner canceled, Mick drags Nate to his second-favourite watering hole in the city. Nate's certain that everyone in here has been in Iron Heights at least once, but Mick seems comfortable, hunching over an order of nachos at the bar. His eyes are trained on the football game that's on both television screens. Turns out the Central City Cougars are making their first post-season run since Nate was a kid.

"Huh," Nate says. "Leave town for a few months and the Cougars finally figure out how to play defense."

Mick grunts what might be agreement. Nate glances sideways at him.

"You're not going to make me talk about my feelings, are you?"

"Not a chance." Mick tilts his bottle in the direction of a woman swaying drunkenly on the bar's tiny dance floor. "I can think of some things besides booze that might help distract you, though."

"I tried that last summer," Nate admits. He's still got the UpSwipz app on his phone. It vibrated the moment they were back in 2018, with fifty new matches.

"Okay," Mick says. He goes back to pulling long sips from his beer bottle.

"I mean, I tried it a lot."

"Don't need details, Pretty."

Nate wakes up in the morning with a raging hangover and dark, blurry photos of a girl he doesn't even remember talking to on his phone.

*

They're in the Hotel Majestic, Paris, 1924, and Nate's reasonably sure that Amaya kissed him first, again. It's thankfully easy to get her out of her blouse and skirt this time. He leaves her black nylons in place, tugging her panties down as she leans back on the bed.

He slides a hand between her thighs, and brushes a kiss across her hip. She's bucking against his mouth and calling his name when a sudden banging noise from the other side of the wall startles them both out of their reverie.

"Keep it down!" Mick yells from the next room, followed by a throaty chuckle. Amaya puts her hand over her mouth, trying to stifle a moan.

"So much for keeping it quiet from the rest of the team," Amaya says when they're done.

Nate swallows down half a dozen terrible jokes as he sits up on the bed, and instead asks her, "Is that what we were doing?"

Amaya sighs tiredly. "Nathaniel."

"What?" Nate demands. "I'm not allowed to ask?"

They go from there to a screaming match in two minutes flat. Soon Mick is pounding on the wall again, yelling to be heard over their shouting. "I said shut up, or I'll shut you up!"

"Come on over and try it!" Nate yells back. Then claps his mouth shut. Taunting Mick Rory is probably not one of his better ideas, even with the superpowers.

"Don't make me come in there and separate you!" Sara yells from the room above. Most of her words are drowned out by a stranger in the hallway, shouting at all of them in French. When Nate hops into the hallway still pulling on his trousers, the stranger shoves their bottle of wine under one arm and applauds heartily.

*

Nate's not sure why he's the Legend that gets kidnapped the most often. Maybe he smells the most alluring. Maybe he has some sort of scent that attracts evil, like supervillain pheromones.

He's tried more than once to break his handcuffs, but each time his body is flooded with a drug that's dampening his powers. The swaying of the moving truck that he's trapped in is making him nauseous, as the heavy wheels of the truck container bounce down an uneven road. They're somewhere outside Gotham, 2097, but Nate has no clear picture of where they're headed. To some sort of meta experimentation factory, probably. Nate is breathing heavily, trying to summon the strength to try another escape, when the side of the moving truck shatters in a wall of ice. The vehicle veers sideways, roughly coming to a stop a quarter of a mile down on the road's gravel shoulder. A blur of red and blue metal crashes through the hole in the truck, and almost lands on top of him.

Nate blinks. "Ray!"

"Yeah, Nate--whoa." Ray pushes up his visor, and then reaches out to steady Nate, who's weaving and bobbing as he tries to stand. Mick appears suddenly behind him for support, broad and solid as a wall.

"Easy, Pretty. Gang's all here."

"Amaya?" Nate asks, shaking his head in confusion. The last thing he remembers, Amaya had left him in Central City. No, that isn't right. The last thing he remembers is that Amaya was mad at him.

The Atom's helmet bobs up and down as Ray nods. "She's here too. Well, she and Z went after the mad scientists that kidnapped you. They should have caught up with them by now."

"Ohhhh." Nate inhales, his chest feeling heavy from the drugs. "Yeah. They hate when people mistreat metas."

Ray is looking at him strangely, but Nate doesn't know why. He leaves off fiddling with Nate's electronic handcuffs, and presses a few buttons on his gauntlet. Suddenly the cuffs swell to three times their original size, sliding easily off Nate's wrists.

"Ow," Nate says. The metal device bounces off his foot with a violent clang.

"Oops. Sorry, buddy."

*

He spends the next five days sidelined while the mad scientist juice works its way out of his system. Gideon can't do anything to speed up the process, and Nate is probably more grouchy about it than anyone aboard the Waverider really deserves. 

They're somewhere in Central Asia, 1267, chasing an anachronism that's threatening to spread the Mongolian Empire into Western Europe. Gideon calls it a level eleven. Nate's confined to the ship, where he's scowling at the history books which haven't changed in the last half hour.

Amaya appears in the doorway of the study. "Hey. I brought ice cream."

Nate looks up in surprise. "Wait, how long have you been here?"

"Since the others left?" Amaya shrugs, holding out the bowl. She's wearing jeans and a tee shirt, rather than Mongolian silks. "Sara thought someone should stay with you. They'll call if they need me."

"Hmmn." Nate makes a thoughtful noise. Sometimes Sara is being considerate, but sometimes she's using League of Assassins training tactics on them, and it can be hard to tell the difference. "Guard duty. And you, what, drew the short straw?"

Amaya's voice is soft. She shrugs. "I volunteered, Nathaniel."

Nate stares at her for a second, surprised. He shifts awkwardly in place, then gestures to the bowl of ice cream. "Oh. Um. Is that Chunky Monkey?"

"Of course it's Chunky Monkey. Or, you know, it's Gideon's best approximation."

Nate does a small fist pump before reaching for the bowl. "I love Chunky Monkey." 

"I knew that," Amaya reminds him. She smiles as he digs in with the spoon, eating three rapid bites and wincing at the brain freeze tingle that follows.

"Oh, yeah?" Nate asks her, still slurping ice cream. "Did you also know that Genghis Khan invented one of the first international mail systems?"

He holds the spoon out to her, and she takes it, shaking her head at him as she scoops up a small spoonful of ice cream. "No. I did not know that."

"Uh huh." Nate motions with both hands, and then he's off, rambling about the Silk Road for what's probably far too long.

The team returns in a hurry two hours later. Zari's scowling, sporting an arrow through her left shoulder. Ray helps her to the infirmary and politely ignores the way she's cursing at him.

"I hate the fucking Middle Ages," Zari announces. 

*

"I was thinking that maybe we should just be friends," Amaya says to him two days later, catching him unexpectedly in the galley. He's still wearing his pajamas, holding half a tuna sandwich. 

"Are we not friends?" Nate asks her, with bright false cheer. "I thought we were."

Amaya raises her eyes to the ceiling, and touches her totem as if she's summoning an ashe that will give her renewed patience. "Of course we're friends. I mean maybe we shouldn't have sex again. I know we both--" Here Amaya breaks off her sentence, and shrugs. 

"Sure," Nate says. He's unsuccessful keeping the sharp, bitter edge of sarcasm in his voice from turning slightly angry. "No more sex. We can do that. Third time's a charm, right?"

*

Spoiler: they absolutely have sex again. It's fucking amazing. They do it in the weapons room, pressed close against the wall, and Nate can't even remember why he came in here in the first place. Amaya wraps her long legs around his hips, pressing one hand flat against the bulkhead for balance. He thrusts into her slowly, with the stuttering, rolling rhythm he knows she likes, until she starts to squirm and pant in his arms.

"Are all these guns turning you on?" Nate asks her afterward, and she swats him lightly with one hand. She smells like sweat, and sex, and he can feel her heart still pounding beneath his hand. She lets him set her down on the nearest crate and kiss her gently. 

Nate grins. "Just saying. That's not something I knew about you. If I'd known, I would have hung a rifle on the wall in our bedroom instead of that terrible cheap canvas reproduction. What was that supposed to be, a cherry tree?"

"I thought it was a flamingo," Amaya says, and they dissolve into hushed laughter.

*

"Hey, Gideon." He doesn't think to ask until later.

"Yes, Doctor Heywood?"

"You're not going to tell Sara about the, uh, incident in the storage room. Are you?"

Sara's had to deal with a lot since they got the Waverider back. She's been watchful and sharp-edged, and though Nate can't really blame her, the whole team tries to evade her scoldings the best he can. Except for maybe Mick, who turns it into a game and always seems to know exactly how far he can push. 

Gideon hesitates very briefly, the way she does sometimes when the humans have done something her programming doesn't expect. "I assume you mean the inadvisable intercourse between you and Ms. Jiwe at fourteen hundred hours and eighteen minutes this afternoon."

Nate makes an uncomfortable face. Gideon's the worst narc, but she's also sometimes the only one who understands what Nate is talking about. "Yeah, but can we just keep that between you and me? And, you know, Amaya. Obviously, since she was there and everything."

"I see no reason to volunteer that information to anyone," Gideon explains. "But I would have to reveal it if asked directly."

"Okay. Great." Probably no one's going to ask Gideon whether he and Amaya have been banging in the ship's public spaces. Nate hopes.

"However," Gideon continues, "I do have the ability to purge extraneous logs as part of my systems' routine maintenance should I deem it necessary."

There's a long pause. Nate scratches his side, waiting. "Well?" he asks, finally.

There's another minute pause. "Are you talking to me, Doctor Heywood?" Gideon asks.

"Yeah. Are you able to erase the logs from this afternoon? The, uh, fourteen hundred hours and whatever?"

"I do not have any memory data from that hour," Gideon says, and now she sounds openly confused. "It appears to be missing entirely from my storage banks."

Nate grins stupidly at the bulkheads. "Thanks, Gideon. You're the best."

"I am glad that you think so, Doctor Heywood."

*

They're in Majorca, 2029, and Nate just wants to know who came up with this terrible plan. He scowls down at the red swim briefs he's wearing.

"Look, guys. I just don't understand why I have to be naked for this plan. Is it because of my animal magnetism?"

He catches Amaya's gaze out of the corner of his eye across the bridge of the Waverider, and oh, God. He did not just say animal magnetism.

Sara's wearing a bikini that ties around her neck and hips, and plastic flip flops that she could probably easily kill a man with. Or five. Nate is very carefully not staring. Mick is being much less polite, his mouth hanging open slightly. Sara rolls her eyes, and ignores him.

"Because Damien Darhk's grandkids apparently like a poolside party with an open bar, and you're the only one here who's resistant to magic," Sara tells Nate patiently.

"Besides," Amaya says, "you look cute."

Mick grunts, and Nate realises that Sara's not the only one being leered at. He tries to stand up a little straighter.

"Regardless of who looks cute," Sara adds, putting a slight growl into her voice as she twirls her staff, "maybe Damien Darhk himself will show up and I'll finally get to kill him."

"I hope so," Nate says, sincerely. The entire team murmurs whole-hearted agreement.

*

"I don't know if I can do this." They're somewhere in the Alps, 1749. They're standing on the edge of a snowy chasm, teetering over the drop. The rocks below look sharp, though not as sharp as the swords held by the charging Prussian army. They're still a few hundred yards off, but Nate stands ready to steel up, just in case.

"Of course you can do it," Nate says.

"You think I can do anything," Amaya half-mutters. 

"That's true," Nate agrees without hesitation. "But we are running out of options in a hurry, Amaya. The Waverider can't land up here, so we've got to go to her, and all you've got to do is--"

"Fly," Amaya finishes. 

"Yeah," Nate says, and then adds, "I trust you."

Amaya looks at him with a grateful smile, and then takes a deep breath. She grabs him in a tight embrace, and then there's a screeching sound like there's an eagle overhead.

Then they're flying over tall mountains, cold wind whipping past. "This is so cool!" Nate yells out, and his words echo back to him for what seems like forever.

*

Nate's used to being the only one up in the middle of the night. It's dead quiet, his face is buried in a book, and he almost walks into a wall rather than through the door of his quarters.

"Happy birthday," an unexpected voice says, and Nate looks up. Amaya is sitting on his bed in the nude, her bare feet flat against the deck. Nate can't help staring at her speechlessly for a moment.

"It's not my--" Nate frowns, cutting himself off as he closes his book and puts it down on the side table. "Gideon, what's the ship's date today?"

"It is just past midnight on May 10, 2018," Gideon announces.

"Huh. I guess it is my birthday. You could have just gotten me a gift card?"

He's still standing on the threshold of his own room, too uncertain to move. Amaya breathes a quiet sigh that's almost too soft to hear, gracefully heaving bare shoulders, and moves as if to stand and leave.

"Wait! I mean, you really don't have to put your clothes back on? I just thought we weren't doing this anymore."

Her eyes are locked on his, shining with some emotion that Nate can't read. "Does that seem like it's working?" Amaya asks him. 

"No?" Nate admits slowly. "But I thought I was supposed to keep pretending along with you? Wow, okay, I changed my mind. I think that you should get dressed."

Amaya sighs, exasperated and hurt. "Nathaniel."

"If we're going to talk about this, I mean. You're just a little distracting. And don't get me wrong, it's totally fine with me if you wanna keep pretending that this isn't really happening. Which is incredibly pathetic of me, I know that, but I--"

"You're babbling," Amaya interrupts him kindly.

Nate closes his mouth. "Sorry."

Amaya shrugs into a shirt, but doesn't move to get dressed further. Nate recognises it as his own, the one he left laying on the foot of his bed that morning. "I don't want to pretend," Amaya says, as he sits down beside her.

"But eventually you're going to have to go home," he points out.

"Yeah."

"I am probably not going to handle that very well?" Nate admits quietly. "So don't say I didn't warn you."

"Maybe we can cross that bridge when we come to it." Amaya sounds nervous, as if she thinks he might say no. 

Except there was never any chance of that. As terrible ideas go, on a scale of one to ten, it's probably only about an eight and a half. Nate nods. "Let's do that, then."

*

Heraclitus of Ephesus said that you can't step in the same river twice. They've got a time ship and a record of all of human history, but there's still no way for them to erase the tape and start over. Amaya lies in Nate's bed, cuddled next to him underneath the blankets, and listens to Nate mumbling the chorus to _One Dance_ beside her.

"It's late," she mumbles sleepily, shifting over and resting her head against his shoulder. "Go to sleep."

Nate stops humming. He isn't trying to solve the pieces of any mystery tonight, but his mind is still racing, wrapped up in thoughts of the past and future that he can't untangle. Nate wraps his arms around Amaya, and feels her breathing steadily against him, her rib cage rising and falling. "Can't," he answers simply. 

"Well, I'm going to sleep." She brushes a kiss against his cheek. "Good night, Nathaniel."

"Yeah. Good night, Gideon," he adds, and the lights switch off.

"Good night, Doctor Heywood," Gideon says, and under the humming of her engines, everything is quiet.

*fin.

**Author's Note:**

> If Nate knows all the words to _Return of the Mack_ then he definitely knows every Drake song about inadvisably hooking up with your ex, is all I'm saying. Music geek Nate Heywood is my favourite. Come say hi on [dreamwidth](http://dirty_diana.dreamwidth.org) or [tumblr](http://sweeter-than.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
